Everyday Victim Blaming

challenging institutional disbelief around domestic & sexual violence and abuse

Local man defends David Ruffley MP – with more victim blaming

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023rgg6

On the Jeremy Vine show, Mr Bernard Sergeant, local resident and Conservative party member , defended his MP David Ruffley with the following words:

All this happened behind closed doors.

This wasn't a "thing" that just "happened". David Ruffley assaulted his ex-partner. He did this "thing".

People do many things behind closed doors, including fraud, theft, assault and murder. It doesn't make those things more or less reprehensible. It doesn't make them more or less of public interest.

It was a private matter, and as in most domestic issues, I suggest it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

Mr Sergeant, like so many people, urgently needs educating about domestic abuse. Not domestic "issues", Mr Sergeant. This is not an "issue" any more than it is a "thing" that "happened".

Domestic abuse is not "six of one and half-a-dozen of the other" That is abuse apologia, where abusers claim that they were provoked, that their victim deserved it, that it isn't really abuse and that the abuser was somehow justified in their actions. It is false. The only person to blame is the perpetrator and there is no justification.

Nobody really knows what went on.

Given that nobody really knows what went on, Mr Sergeant seems remarkably certain, just like Andrew Speed, chairman of the Bury St Edmunds Conservative Association, in his email , that he does indeed know what went on. And that, in his view, we should all just stop making such a big deal about it because when Jeremy Vine asked

How can you have as a candidate a man who beats up his girlfriend?

Mr Sergeant's response was

Well, why not?

Mr Sergeant may be happy to have such a man represent him. Such a man does not, however, and never could, represent me.

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2 thoughts on “Local man defends David Ruffley MP – with more victim blaming

  • It’s unbelievable. It’s also believable and that’s the really sad thing. Keep up the great work.

  • Hecuba says:

    Bernard Sergeant believes women are mens’ private property because Sergeant believes whatever a male does within his own ‘private fiefdome’ (the man’s home/property) is above the law. Therefore if any male subjects any woman to violence within his own ‘private fiefdome’ this is not a crime but merely male pseudo sex right to oppress women because they are female.

    Men have always claimed their ‘private fiefdomes’ are above the law which is why for centuries men were able to subject women and children living in mens’ private fiefdomes to physical/sexual violence with impunity.

    I wonder if Sergeant condones males entering other males’ private property and stealing their valuables because third parties do not know if the male victim (sic) consented to the male burglar stealing his property? After all we don’t know what exactly happens within a male’s private fiefdome since security cameras are not routinely installed to monitor every second of the male’s movements.

    I have no doubt Sergeant would be outraged if police told him theft from your property is a ‘private issue’ not a crime because the incident occurred within your ‘private fiefdome!’